THE \ A ,. '- j _--- _ :: :'::: lID /J\\\' 6. \ .. w. -- --, " 0 0 . , .. 0 ..".. ",. THE TALK OF THE TOWN Notes arId G'10JJlJJZClzt B Eì7"OND any doubt \ve are liv- ing in the great era of question- a king, the heyday of official cu- riosity. ()n April 2nd, the census-tak- er , covering the land like locusts, arc going to want to know more about us than they ever did before-more about our house, tllore about our Income, more about where we vvere on the nIght of January 16th. \\1 e have been reading that a lot of statesmen are dismayed by this prospect, seeing their constituents' privacy ruthlessly violated. \\;'" e have al- so read that courses 0 f instruction are be- ing given to the census-takers, teaching them to ask em barrassing questions tact- full y . It is our opinion that all this is largely waste lllotion. In the last decade the ßR p a:..t! r 'QØ """ '-' ' 'f -' J .L \nlerican adult has been thoroughly cnnditioned to giving information about '-' '-' himself. Private polls have explored an his religious, political, and artistic in- clinations . , advertising agencies have dis- '-' '-' covered his preferences in S( LIp, radio 1 1rograms, and women; the govern- Inent has already learned p'Aactically all there is to know about hin1 eCOnOITI- ically. Ten years ago an augmented census would prohably have been re- sented, but now we suspect it's just the opposite. lVlen and \VOIllen \vho once thought it was nobodr's damn busi- ness how lTIuch they disliked their par- ents now employ psychoanalysts at fifty dollars an hour to discuss these matters with them. 'T'he truth is that the instinct for privacy is no more than a racial Inen1- ory, as vestigial as the 111 o nkey's tail on Don Ameche. \\T c don't think the census-taker is going to have any special trouble getting the facts out of peo- pIe; his problem is going to be breaking away before the lady üf the house begins to tell him all about her strange and F'reudian dreams. F IRST prize in the New Republic's essay-writing contest for college un- dergraduates is to be a job for the SUll1- mer in the magazine's offices for $25 a week. The essay lTIUSt be two to three thousand words on some topic of current interest. In a field cluttered up with contests in which the winner can easIly get $1,000 a week for life just by sending in a wrapper and twenty words beginning "I like Sudsies ne- cause. . ." this struggle for nothing more than the right to vvork is something to think about. The point of most con- tests novvadays is to get money without working. Here the winner goes to what sounds to us like a hell of a lot of bother only to get his neck in a noose. \\1 e love the l\':C'ZV Republic and everybody con- nected with it, but we are afraid they are getting some very arrogant ideas in theIr heads. E VERY now and then we hear from a Broadway or Hollywood columnist that the vogue of the tall glamour girl is definitely on the wane and the star of the short, neat package i" J1! ascendant. These are fine tidings for those of us this side of Gary Coop- er. \Ve are sick to death of having to dance on our toes with pale, heavy- lidded, six-foot tenzmes fatales who eat like pythons between 3: 30 and 4 A.M. This is not to say we favor a return to flappers or It girls. Let the dead past hury its dead. Just so long as it iSH' t toujours glamour, our Inind is 'VI,ride open. M R. LEON TAUB, a scalp authoritv in the grip of his monomania, writes us to say that newspapertllen get bald much quicker than anybody else. "The percentage of thin-haired and bald-headed men in journalislll through- out the country is too high to he con- sidered lightly," he says. "l\jost of our journalists are quite young, or at least r'" . J- " 11 --L- I =- iiiI under fitty, which is ont: of the reasons why this condition is so trae-ic. Al- . though naturally highly romantic, love may pass them by only because of their elderly appearance, Î1nplied by baldness. . . . 'The survey also revealed that on- Iv 10)0 of the bald-headed journalists had ever been married and 2 % of thi" number were divorced. . . all of which proves that this is a problelTI which should be solved, and solved quickly." 1-\S the possessor of as pretty a head of golden ringlets as you'll find on the At- lantic seahoard, we're afraid we have heen inclined to take baldness and the sin le state of our romantic though de- '-' '-' pilated colleagues much too lightly. No man, however, can accuse us of evading our duty once it has been presented to us sharp and clear, or of failing to recognize a national issue vvhen we see one. ore hair and V\Tives for journal- ists is our platform for 1940. Taub for President! N OTEs ON THE HIC;HER EDUCA- TION: Dropsie College, of Phil- adelphia, gets by with thirty-five stu- dents and seven instructors, while the